2010-02-01

Sort of. Once again, the super fabulous T-Rox Music Academy put on it's twice yearly show. And as I had previously promised, this time I performed.

I've played in front of fellow students and parents now a couple of times and it's getting a little easier. But I was also helped by the fact that my son played a drum solo right before me. This bit of scheduling genius robbed me of the time I might have spent getting super nervous...

Overall I am very happy with how it went. Nearly 24 hours afterwards, I'm still thinking about it. It was also fun to have my son in the audience telling me later about the whispered comments from people around him that had never seen anybody live-loop or use an E-Bow before.

But there is still much room for improvement. There is still a big gap between what I'm doing and my "exquisite taste" (all creative people should watch Ira Glass in this video).

Allow me to enumerate:

still too nervous; amazing how when you're nervous, even finding the 3rd string or forming a simple maj7 chord shape can be a challenge. The solution? Do it more. I never got passable at anything by doing less.

look at the audience; sure this is partly because I still suck as a player, but at least try to connect

feedback; this was the first time I took the Gretsch onstage. Because I don't play with an amp at home, I don't have much experience wrestling with this monster. Big thanks to Alex Harrison (T-Rox instructor and roadie for the event); he twiddled some knobs and saved my bacon.